of the individual to himself, of his originality and, as regards his
own character, _unique_ quality, must have had a great charm for
people living in a society in which introspection, thanks to the want
of other entertainment, played almost the part of a social resource.

In the United States, in those days, there were no great things to
look out at (save forests and rivers); life was not in the least
spectacular; society was not brilliant; the country was given up to a
great material prosperity, a homely _bourgeois_ activity, a diffusion
of primary education and the common luxuries. There was therefore,
among the cultivated classes, much relish for the utterances of a
writer who would help one to take a picturesque view of one's internal
possibilities, and to find in the landscape of the soul all sorts of
fine sunrise and moonlight effects. "Meantime, while the doors of the
temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of
this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this,
namely--it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand.
Truly speaking, it is not instruction but provocation that I can
receive from another soul." To make one's self so much more
interesting would help to make life interesting, and life was
probably, to many of this aspiring congregation, a dream of freedom
and fortitude. There were faulty parts in the Emersonian philosophy;
but the general tone was magnificent; and I can easily believe that,
coming when it did and where it did, it should have been drunk in by a
great many fine moral appetites with a sense of intoxication. One
envies, even, I will not say the illusions, of that keenly sentient
period, but the convictions and interests--the moral passion. One
certainly envies the privilege of having heard the finest of Emerson's
orations poured forth in their early newness. They were the most
poetical, the most beautiful productions of the American mind, and